Next week, diplomats and politicians from across the world will invade Copenhagen, Denmark for U.N. climate change talks that were supposed to be the culmination of years of international negotiations over a treaty designed to replace the unsuccessful Kyoto treaty, which failed to produce any reduction in greenhouse gases.

Fortunately for taxpayers, the United States never ratified Kyoto, and President Obama and other world leaders have already said that the U.S. will not agree to a repeat of the failed treaty.

Unfortunately, these talks won’t address the concern that many in the U.S. now have about the scientific integrity and transparency of climate studies. Last week, global warming alarmists were rocked by the release of a trove of e-mail correspondence – known by many as ClimateGate – from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England.

Head U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern has repeatedly said that the U.S. should be “guided by science” in our approach to these climate negotiations. But how can we follow the lead of scientists who use “tricks” to “hide the decline” in temperatures? Who scheme to get around Freedom of Information requirements? Who refuse to share the data that supports their work? Who tailor scientific results to hawk for research grants? And who consciously scheme to discredit and repress studies that don’t support their conclusions?

ClimateGate will not be a topic in the meeting rooms of Copenhagen. I plan to attend the Conference in Denmark, however, and it will be one of my top agenda items.

Other issues I plan to closely follow, include:

1) Wealth transfers: China emits more carbon dioxide than any other nation. Other developing countries, like India and Brazil, are also heavy emitters. But before these nations agree to even monitor their greenhouse gas emissions, they demand to be paid. Some are asking for as much one percent of the developed world’s GDP. For the U.S., that’s a price tag of $140 billion a year—more than 5 times our entire foreign aid budget of $28 billion per year.

2) Unrealistic cuts: If mandated on an artificial timeframe without allowing for technological advances, greenhouse gas emissions cuts will raise energy prices and hinder development. That’s why China, India and other developed countries are so reluctant to agree to them. The U.S. should be too. Despite their heavy majority, Democrats in the House had to arm twist to get just enough votes for a 17 percent cut in emissions in the job-killing cap-and-tax bill passed in June. Some in Copenhagen will be pushing for developed countries to commit to a 40 percent cut by 2020. Cuts of this magnitude would be impossible without a complete and total collapse of the U.S. economy.

3) Intellectual property rights: The only economically responsible way to reduce emissions is through technological advances. Developing countries, however, are demanding free access to new energy technologies. Those who would develop these technologies would therefore lose the right to profit from them. How’s that for an incentive to create?

4) No developing country commitments: Despite their calls for big payouts, free technology and big emission cuts from the developed world, developing countries like China and India have unequivocally said they will not make their own cuts. Studies show that if developing countries don’t cut their emissions, we won’t reduce global greenhouse gas levels. If China and India are so concerned about global warming – as opposed to getting paid and getting free technology – then they must agree to genuine emission cuts.

Negotiators in Copenhagen won’t be discussing ClimateGate, but they should. The agenda they do plan to discuss is more alarming than the potential consequences of global warming.

Rep. Sensenbrenner is ranking Republican on the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. The views expressed by guest bloggers on the Foundry do not necessarily reflect the views of the Heritage Foundation.

I think the current administration and other world leaders are really out to impoverish the people, in order to gain complete control of us all. If Cap & Trade goes through, this 4 Corners area will lose our base economy from oil and coal. Thousands will be out of work. People on fixed incomes will not survive long. These climate Nazis will ruin all but the so called elite.

There is no way the U.S. should commit to this treaty. We are already paying the Chinese billions in interest on loans they made to us because we chose to pour our money into helping those who would not bring themselves out of poverty. I'm speaking of our own people who we, through faulty mortgage papers, helped to buy houses they never could and in many cases never intended to pay for. Had we not been so charitable, those same people would have worked for jobs that would help them to succeed rather than depend on tax payers to support them. The U.S. succeeded in creating a society of entitlement. Now the rest of the world wants people who work and innovate to provide them with relief because they do not work and innovate. Americans believe in charity to those with real need. But the Chinese and the Indians and the Brazilians do not need charity. The have money and resources. They would like us to give them more money to be sure. The third world could dump some of their own dictators and do what America did in 1776. Get free and develop their own businesses. The biggest profiteers will be the U.N. leaders who will cash in on any treaty and build their own fortunes with our cap and trade money.

The end result of this false debate on Global warming is that the Global development organizations, including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, an the United Nations, will receive many billions of dollars for hurricane and flood proof housing for the poor. CO2 level increases cannot be reversed without reversing civilization itself, since we would have to curtail industrialized progress and maintanance of our industrial base. Increased CO2 levels increase the energy in the atmosphere, causing the weather to become more energetic. The primary problem that the Global Warming alarmists are using is the effect of this on the poor, vulnerable people of the world in developing countries. This will happen, so we need merely to follow existing International Building Codes when we help them build their housing and other builings in extreme weather prome areas. This does not cost any more than we're currently required by treaty as a nation to contribute, and the the liberals are merely scamming to get more money into their world development charities. Given the historically abysmal performance of the Republican Party respecting this fraud, they will probably get it.

The sky is falling!!! IN THE LAST BOOK OF THE BIBLE IT TELLS US HOW THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT WILL END.STAY AROUND IF YOU LIKE BUT YOU BETTER BUY A FIRE PROOF SUIT!!! I DON'T PLAN ON BEING AROUND.I THINK CONGRESSMAN SENSENBRENNER IS DOING A GREAT JOB.

The goal of cap/tax, health care, stimulus 1 or 2, corporate bailouts, etc. is never about what it says on the face. It's about control; paying those that are "owed" and reducing the US to a third world country.

It's interesting to take a hard look/listen to what Obama is saying…this is a speech on "prolonged detention" of terrorists. Now, he is supposedly speaking about those we are at war with, Al Queda, et al. But listen carefully, and remember how the Dept. of Homeland Security deemed "right wing extremists" as terrorists. Anyone want to guess on when they decide to arrest and hold American citizens who espouse conservative views? I pray it's never…but I put nothing past him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS1-Tu1jq8A

You are saying that the developing countries don't agree to cut emissions despite getting payouts and free technology. This is a misunderstanding. In fact the declared policy of India (and other developing countries) is that we are willing to subject that part of our emissions cut target for which we get money to international monitoring, and any other emissions cut target that we try to achieve cannot be made mandatory and subjected to international monitoring though we would earnestly try to achieve them.

One commentator (Bill, Wis.) says that China, India and Brazil don't need charity. Of course we do not expect charity but we are not rich as he says. In India 40% people don't even have access to electricity. We agree that climate change is a threat but we cannot agree to emissions cut at the cost of our growth. We want the developed world to pay only because they expect us to limit our growth for the sake of reducing emissions.

It is true that cutting emissions is a tough challenge but you cannot dismiss climate change as farce. Without your support it is not possible for developing countries like India to cut emissions. If you decide no deal, then after all Americans are familiar with Mutual Assured Destruction.

The only reason Gore wrote and made the movie An Inconvenient Truth, most of which were lies anyway, was because he lost the election. So it was his way of saying S*((^w America. Global warming is a stretch of the imagination, What do all green things need to survive CO2. It is not a pollutant. Just one more way for Gov. to get all our hard worked for money. If things go the way they are no one will have a job except Gov. and they will even lose there jobs when no on can pay the taxes they want. Gore and his sour grapes can just stop flying all over the world polluting and I think he should have to work in a coal mine just to see how the rest of the world lives, and not for just a week, how about 33years.

The so called treaties in copenhagen fall right into line with what the obama congress has been pushing every since he was elected. I don't know if we will even survive until the 2010 midterms. there has to be some way to overturn all of the damaging legislation that these elitists politicians keep piling onto us. the only people who these people seem to go after with any real gusto is our inteligence agencies and our military. Please God get us through these next months!!!!!

WE must vote out any member of Congress who votes yes for Cap& Trade and we must investigate Cass Sunstein and the underhanded tactic of having congress pass a bill that allows government to make edicts of Carbon emissions without a public vote or voice.

This will bankrupt our industries and drive the price of energy up "dramatically" as Obama promised. If electric prices go up "dramatically" Obama is forcing us to green, unproven and costly alternatives. Pay attention and stop this madness.

Correction. There is no Climate Change or more succinctly – there is no such thing as man-made or man-affected climate change. The gas and oil industries are not negatively affected profit-wise by Cap & Trade schemes. They lobbied hard for pieces of the pie (carbon credits) and got them in both the House and Senate bill. The real winners in Cap & Trade are folks at GE (pushing 'alternative', so-called Green energy sources like wind turbines) and Goldman Sachs (who will be selling the credits and thus controlling the money). You are naive at best to think that we can affect the climate of this planet. And, even if you do believe in unicorns, if the US and other countries enter into this ridiculous treaty without the third world big-time polluters like China and India, it won't mean a gosh darn thing to the Earth. You are right about one thing. We all live here together.

I worked designing engines for the automotive industry since 1950. We underwent huge expensive design changes to to reduce polllution to its current level. Compared to climate in the 1950s and 60s, the United States is now probably the cleanest country on earth. With no scientific evidence, world leaders want to force us to change the climate or pay the price. Hurricanes were blamed on global warming a few years back, and last year, they were almost non existant. Now, CO2 is going to destroy the world, so let's get rid of all that stuff. But unlike most pollutants, CO2 is a necessity. Trees and all vegetation need it to survive to convert back to oxygen. Oh, but who needs that stuff anyway? Why don't we just let nature take charge of climate like it's been doing for the last billion or so? years???

It seems to me that all the discusion about Global warming/cooling revolves around just that; Is it or not.

We need to get into the science as to whether or not fossil fuels contribute to Global warming or not. With water vabor making up 95% of Greenhouse gases and man made carbon dioxide less than 1%, it is hard to comprehend how Co2 can contribute to climate change.

Since CO2 is what we exhale and trees and plants need it I wonder what we are suppose to do, hold our breaths. The reason these so called scienetist promote all this is they are getting rich. Gore still flies his jet, Pelosi flies home in a gov't plane, gov't vehicles are used needlessly, Obama flew a whole lot of them to NY for his "Date night", when these people start practicing what they preach, or admit that they are scaming us (this I doubt)then we need to concentrate on 1) getting these people out of office . 2)write to our congress men and women, both house, tell them we don't want this and other bills that our grandchildren will have to pay for, this includes health. 3)VOTE

On the corner of the Square & W. Washington Ave. here in Madison, WI is a big plaque that shows how capital & what the 1,600 feet of ice that was located here 12,000 years ago compared. Most people believe that the earth is approx 4.5 billion years old so that is a VERY short time ago in terms of the age of the earth. What caused that ice age & what caused it to go??? There is very clear evidence that the earth was warmer from about 8,000 years ago up until about 1,000 years ago. What caused the tempature to cool starting 1,000 years ago?? It was NOT man. The black plague occurred in years djuring this colder period not when it was warmer.

WE NEED NOT SEND OUR TAXES TO PAY FOR OTHER COUNTRIES. WE DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY TO SUPPORT CLIMATE CHANGE LIES. OUR CONSITUTION COMES BEFORE ANY UNITED NATION TREATY WE AS A FREE NATION DONOT NEED THE UNITED NATIONS MAKING OUR LAWS WE ARE A FREE NATION NOT A ONE WORLD GOVERMENT THE U.N. IS A BUNCH OLD MEN OR WOMEN WITH NOTHING TO DO BUT LIVE OFF TAX PAYER MONEY CREATING NOTHING EXCEPT FALSE STATEMENT AND ALWAY's CONDEMENING AMERICAN POLICY WE NEED TO RUN OUR COUNTRY WE DON'T NEED WORLD DICTATORS TELLING US WHAT TO DO OR HOW GOVEREN

Why are the folks that hid the correct information and set forth fraudulent information not charged for fraud and theft of tax payer money? They have obviously caused millions of tax dollars to be spent on funding research and congressional hearings using fraudulent information! Politicians need to start being held accountable for their actions! Including going to JAIL!!!

Its just a bunch of good old boys standing around the Bull pen, staring at cow pies, and trying to figure out which cow the pie came from. Even if they guess it right, what difference does it make, and who cares anyway! Just anothe damn waste of money and effort, and loss of jobs, and a pile of excuses for doing nothing!

Ebba, open your narrow mind to the truth. It has nothing to do with greed of the people, it has to do with the greed of the deceit. EPA, GOVERNMENT, and every other institute that's behind this perpetration.

Ebba,

Why is it so hard to accept that every man-made global warming claim has been caused by nature before man existed, let alone his suv?

international swindle! One wonders what history with say about this "climate hysteria". Looking at the whole process it seems we are living through "Animal Farm" with the pigs in the big house (Copenhagen) carousing while the common beasts are shamed into supporting the farce. It is obvious that this government is throwing money (based on our labor) at every issue without sound plan or support of the governed. This need to be stopped.

Yes my dear Ebba we do all have to live here together. But we are under no obligation to live under your socialist dictates. God created man to be free. Not to accept enslavement from our fellow men. So long as we have the power and the will we shall be free even after the last beating of our hearts. Remember this Ebba. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Weather these intentions are green or red it does not matter the results are always the same.

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